You've probably heard that the FDA is considering whether to approve the first-ever genetically-engineered fish[1]. Developed by a Massachusetts-based company called AquaBounty Technologies[2], this new supersalmon is basically an Atlantic salmon with genes from Chinook salmon and a fish called the ocean pout[3]. In theory, this could be a good thing: The new genes allow the fish, called AquAdvantage, to grow twice as fast[4] as regular salmon, meaning more salmon for everyone, and less stress on wild stocks.But a number of consumer, health, and environmental groups say that neither AquaBounty Technologies nor the FDA has enough evidence to ensure the public that the fish—which wouldn't have to be labeled as genetically engineered (GE) on supermarket shelves—is safe for people or the planet. Consumers Union senior scientist Michael Hansen called the company's food safety tests "woefully incomplete[5]," and the group pointed out that the FDA approval panel is mostly comprised of GE cheerleaders[6], with no fish ecologists or allergists. Why's an allergist important? Because the company's own tests suggest that the new salmon could be much more allergenic than regular salmon.
In order to understand the allergy tests, a bit of backstory on how AquAdvantage salmon are made[7] is necessary. First, genetic engineers create a "diploid" fish, meaning like people, it has two sets of chromosomes. Then, to make the final market product, they add genetic material from other fish and breed a new salmon with three sets of chromosomes—a "triploid" female that can't reproduce. AquaBounty researchers compared the allergenicity—or potential to cause an allergic reaction—of a control group of salmon to both the genetically engineered diploids and triploids. They found (PDF[8], see page 102) that the diploid salmon were 40 percent more allergenic than the control, while the triploid group was 19 percent more allergenic.
AquaBounty says that the triploids' allergenicity level wasn't statistically significant, and although the diploids' level is significant, it doesn't matter because only triploids will be sold. But Hansen of the Consumers Union finds a few problems with this argument. For starters, the test wasn't double blind, meaning the researchers knew which fish were part of which test group. Second, the sample size of triploid fish was tiny—only six fish in all. Third, although AquaBounty is going to try to turn all its market-bound fish into triploid sterile females, the process isn't perfect, and some 5 percent could end up as the more allergenic diploid. Especially scary when you consider that unlike the triploids, the diploids aren't sterile. So if they escaped, they could breed with wild salmon.
The FDA simply doesn't have enough information to determine whether AquaBounty's salmon are likely to cause more allergic reactions than their non-GE counterparts. But there is good reason to be concerned about the potential allergenicity of all GE foods, says Margaret Mellon, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientsts. "You have this technology that allows you to essentially move proteins around from food to food," she says. "You can move a highly allergenic protein into a new food, and no one will know to avoid the new food."
Indeed, a 1996 study[9] published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who were allergic to Brazil nuts were also allergic to soy beans that had been implanted with a Brazil nut protein. There is also some evidence that even proteins don't usually cause allergies can become allergenic when they are moved to a new food. A 2005 Australian study[10] found that mice who were fed peas containing a typically non-allergenic protein from kidney beans experienced allergic reactions.
Another worry is that potentially allergenic GE crops might "escape" into foods. In the late '90s, the pharmaceutical giant Aventis introduced StarLink, a genetically engineered variety of corn. StarLink was approved for sale in the US, but only for non-food uses, since it contained a potentially allergenic protein. But then, traces of it started turning up in food (most famously, Taco Bell taco shells[11]), and 28 people claimed they had suffered allergic reactions to foods containing StarLink. Although the CDC later found no medical evidence[12] that any of those people had an allergy to the corn, an EPA advisory panel acknowledged that the CDC's tests did "not eliminate StarLink...protein as a potential cause of allergic symptoms."
The bottom line: It's not that genetically engineered foods are inherently more allergenic than traditional foods, but transfering genes does make it more likely that allergens might pop up in unexpected places. "There can be a lot of unintended side effects when you do genetic modification, which means you have to test very carefully," says Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the watchdog group Food and Water Watch[13]. "In the case of salmon, one test on six fish just seems very insufficient for something that will open the floodgates to other GE meat and fish."

Friday, September 24, 2010

NEW: February 2011 -While traditional Chineseexercise for toning legs requires no weights or exercise equipment, there are many excellent Chinese-style exercises that can tone, firmand strengthenyour legs from your thighs to your ankles. SOURCE

According to traditional Chinese medical wisdom you are only as old as your legs.

Chinese medical wisdom also says if you strengthen your legs you can slow down the affects of aging and stop certain health problems.

Naturally, there are many traditional Chinese exercises to strengthen your legs. These are done using your bodyweight only. Some are so easy anyone can do them, while others you may need to build up to.

The benefits of strong, flexible legs include:

1. Better support for your whole body

2. Better balance

3. Less chance of leg andlower back pain

Traditional Chinese leg exercises do more than this though. They stimulate important energy meridians in your legs and these meridians are linked to certaininternal organslike your spleen, liver and kidneys.

Do the exercises and you benefit your legs AND your internal organs.

Exercise in the traditional Chinese sense also includes techniques like self-massage andacupressure. These techniques involve pressing and rubbing specific points and areas on your legs (and other body areas) to improve circulation, stop pain, increase flexibility and more.

Lower-body strength translates into good balance, flexibility, and endurance.

As you get older, those attributes are key to reducing your risk of falls and injuries -- particularly hip fractures, which often quickly lead to declining health. Up to 20% of hip-fracture patients die within 1 year because of complications from the trauma.

"Having weak thigh muscles is the number one predictor of frailty in old age," says Robert Butler, MD, president of the International Longevity Center USA in New York City.

Here's one of many suggestions to strengthen them, I know this exercise as "wall sitting".

"Target your quads with the "phantom chair" move, says Joan Price, author of The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book. Here's how: Stand with back against wall. Slowly walk feet out and slide back down until you're in a seated position, ensuring knees aren't beyond toes and lower back is pressed against wall. Hold until your thighs tell you, Enough! Do this daily, increasing your hold by a few seconds each time."

I do some sort of leg strengthening exercise daily because, as a writer for most of my time, I do a lot of sitting.

LOS ANGELES – Mammograms don't help women over 50 as much as has been believed, new research suggests.
Only a third of the reduced risk of death credited to breast cancer screening is actually deserved — the rest is due to better treatment and greater awareness of the disease, a large study in Norway found.
The research, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest to show that the benefits of mammography are limited.
"It's not the great lifesaver that people think it is. It's not a magic bullet," said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt who was not involved in the study.
Mandelblatt headed six teams that helped shape the new mammogram guidelines issued last year by an influential government task force. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded that women at average risk for breast cancer don't need mammograms in their 40s and should get one just every two years starting at 50.
The World Health Organization estimates that mammograms reduce the breast cancer death rate by 25 percent in women over 50. Other groups put the figure at 15 to 23 percent.
The latest study found that while mammograms cut the risk of dying, the benefit was disappointingly low. Women who were screened had a 10 percent lower risk of death from breast cancer, but only a third of that reduction was due to screening itself.
Some 2,500 women would have to be regularly screened over 10 years to save one life from breast cancer, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School noted in an accompanying editorial.
In the study, scientists were able to tease out the benefits of mammography by studying Norway's breast cancer screening program, which began as a pilot in 1996 and later expanded to the entire country. As part of the national screening program, teams of doctors were set up in every county to treat any breast cancer cases that did occur, whether they were found by mammograms or other ways.
Some 40,000 women with breast cancer were included in the study. Women ages 50 through 69 were offered screening every two years.
Researchers compared the breast cancer death rate in four groups: a screening group of women living in areas where mammograms were offered; a non-screening group in regions that did not have screening; and two comparison groups of women from the decade before the screening program began, from the same counties as the women in the other two groups.
This allowed researchers to separate the effects of mammography from other factors that may have an impact on survival such as improved treatment and increased awareness.
Among women in the screening group, the breast cancer death rate declined by 7.2 deaths per 100,000 people compared with women in the decade before the screening program started. The death rate in the non-screening group fell by 4.8 deaths per 100,000 people compared with its historical counterpart.
That means that mammography reduced mortality by only 2.4 deaths per 100,000 people — a third of the total risk of death.
A second part of the study bore this out: Women over 70, who weren't eligible for screening, had an 8 percent lower risk of dying from breast cancer compared to the previous decade, pointing to the benefit of better care.
The study was funded by the Cancer Registry of Norway and the Research Council of Norway. It was led by Dr. Mette Kalager of Oslo University Hospital with collaboration from Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
More than 1 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and more than 500,000 die from it. In the United States last year, there were an estimated 194,280 new cases and 40,610 deaths from the disease.
The American Cancer Society has long advocated that women get annual breast cancer screenings starting at 40.
The small benefit of mammograms in the latest study may be because the women weren't followed long enough, suggested Otis Brawley, the cancer society's chief medical officer, in a statement.
"The total body of the science supports the fact that regular mammography is an important part of a woman's preventive health care," Brawley said. "Following the American Cancer Society's guidelines for the early detection of breast cancer improves the chances that breast cancer can be diagnosed at an early stage and treated successfully."

"What I didn't know was that I have dense breast tissue and like two-thirds of pre-menopausal women and one quarter of post-menopausal women, I have a much lower chance of having breast cancer detected by a mammogram." ...

A great boost for the benefits of thermography over breast-cancer-causing mammogram. It is more effective and better for women under 50. Yes! Thermography's accuracy rate is 90% versus mammogram's 50%. It is well past time the ensconced ...

A new three-state study led by Seattle's Group Health Cooperative shows that even the most skilled radiologists fail to detect 20 percent of breast-cancer cases in diagnostic mammograms — which are done when cancer is suspected and when ...

As a person with an investigative mine I did look for all of the options and I will continue to support the science behind the dark side of mammogram that no one seems to want you to know. And I will encourage thermography. ...

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Most people have been led to believe that HIPAA is to protect your information, especially your health information. That has never been the case and here is an item that calls this to your attention, even though we have been reporting on this for many years.

It is important to note that the HIPAA privacy rule permits public-health workers to use and disclose individually identifiable health data without patients' authorization. This is a major loophole that allows patients’ personal health information to be shared with many others—without their consent. (See 45 CFR Subtitle A, Subpart E—Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information; section 164.512 “Uses and disclosures for which an authorization or opportunity to agree or object is not required.”)

Further, the information below should be an eye opener.

Proposed Changes to Privacy Rule Won’t Ensure Privacy

The federal government once again is modifying the HIPAA privacy rule. This time around it’s modifying the rule to incorporate legal requirements in the economic stimulus law passed in 2009. But since that law doesnot require consent before health information is shared for most purposes (including treatment, payment, and health-care operations), the modifications will fail to truly protect health privacy rights. IHF first reported on this in March 2009: http://forhealthfreedom.org/Newsletter/March2009.html#Article2

IHF noted that while the stimulus law aimed to prohibit the sale of electronic health records, the exceptions are so broad that it fails to meet its purported objective. In fact, the stimulus law actually permits the selling of Americans’ electronic health records for public-health and research purposes—without patients’ consent. The stimulus law also limits insurers’ access to health data, but only if patients pay out-of-pocket and forgo insurance reimbursement.

Additionally, the stimulus law expanded the number of people authorized to access patients’ personal health information without patients’ consent. Previously HHS estimated that about 600,000 covered entities (and their employees) would have access to patients’ data for many purposes. However, the stimulus law added some 1.5 million “business associates” who can legally access patients’ health records—without patients’ consent. Now over 2 million health-related organizations and their business partners will have legal access to patients’ health data without consent in many circumstances (see table below).

Number of Health-Care Entities and Business Associates With Access to

Patients’ Health Information under HIPAA Privacy Rule

Health-Care Entity

Number

Business Associates* (conduct business on behalf of entities listed below)

Thus, the stimulus law expanded the number of people who can access patients’ health information but stillfailed to give patients the final say in who may—and may not—see their most personal health records. Rather than tinkering around the edges modifying the weak HIPAA privacy rule (as required by the stimulus law), it’s time to call on Congress to change the law to ensure that patient consent is required before personal health information is shared for any purpose, including public health.

Millions of seniors face double-digit hikes in their Medicare prescription premiums next year unless they shop for cheaper coverage, a new analysis of government data finds.Premiums will go up an average of 10 percent among the top 10 drug plans that have signed up about 70 percent of seniors, according to an analysis of Medicare data by Avalere Health, a private research firm.Marketing for next year's drug plans gets under way Oct. 1, and seniors will see some of the biggest changes since the Medicare prescription benefit became available in 2006. More than 17 million are enrolled in private drug plans offered through Medicare. Read complete article

And as you can clearly see, this is not what people were expecting, along with being the result of insider deals with Big PhRMA and Big Insurance.

For me it is tragic to read because I know so many people will be impacted in negative ways, thier finances and thier health.

This is certainly one more reason to take our natural health calsses or sponsor one our our "HealthY Options for Seniors" programs in your community.

From 9/22, continue below -

Medicare Cuts Back on Nutritional Screening

One lab test per year to screen for all nutrient deficiencies or imbalances. Test your vitamin D levels, and you’re done. If you’re on Medicare and live in the Southwest, one test per year is all you’re allowed.

As part of the 2003 Bush Medicare bill, Medicare chose fifteen regional firms as Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs). These MACS handle claims, deny or approve procedures, and make rulings on what is allowed to be covered under Medicare in their region.

Last month, Trailblazer Health Enterprises, the MAC for Region IV (Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas), said that from now on, each beneficiary could receive only one lab test per year to detect deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, and other nutritional components. “Medicare considers vitamin assay panels [to be] a screening procedure and therefore, non-covered,” according to the decision. “Similarly, assays for micronutrient testing for nutritional deficiencies that include multiple tests for vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and various metabolic functions are never necessary.” This would be the most restrictive policy in the nation regarding tests for vitamins and minerals.

ANH-USA believes it’s critical to get complete nutritional profiles—or at least multiple nutrient tests—to ensure optimal health. This new policy discounts the importance of optimal nutrition and nutrient levels in the prevention and treatment of disease.

A spokesperson for a testing laboratory in Texas, who asked that the company’s name not be published, told us, “It is well known that physicians often find it reasonable and necessary to order multiple tests to detect deficiencies of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants (and such a position is fully supported by the scientific literature).

“On a routine basis, for example, physicians commonly order tests for vitamins B-12 and folate simultaneously. [Physicians who understand] the clinical relationships between nutritional deficiencies and disease processes may frequently find it reasonable and necessary to order a broader range of nutritional tests….Each of these physician’s orders—based on the physician’s determination of medical necessity—would be denied coverage under the proposed Trailblazer policy solely because more than one test is requested.”

Seniors may also be affected by efforts to reduce Medicare fraud, leading to possible finger printing of their doctors. And perhaps a contributing factor as to why more doctors are moving to hospital based provider systems.

By Joyce Frieden, News Editor, MedPage Today

WASHINGTON -- Medicare providers who have a "high risk" of defrauding the government could be fingerprinted and undergo background checks under new regulations proposed Monday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The proposed rule -- which is part of the Affordable Care Act signed in March by President Obama -- "strikes a balance that will permit CMS to continue to assure that eligible beneficiaries receive appropriate services from qualified providers whose claims are paid on a timely basis while implementing enhanced measures to prevent outright fraud," according to the agency. "[The rule] will help assure that only legitimate providers and suppliers are enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and [the Children's Health Insurance Program], and that only legitimate claims will be paid."

The idea behind the rule is to help the agency transition from its "pay and chase" approach to fraud -- under which providers are paid and then Medicare determines which payments were fraudulent and then chases after the providers to get the money back -- to a strategy of fraud prevention, the agency explained in the conclusion to the rule.

The "pay and chase" system "functions reasonably well when the problems arise with legitimate providers and suppliers that will be solvent and in business when CMS seeks to recover overpayments or law enforcement pursues civil or criminal penalties," CMS noted. "It is not adequate when the fraud is committed by sham operations that provide no services or supplies and exist simply to steal from Medicare or Medicaid and thrive on stealing or subverting the identities of beneficiaries and providers."

Under the rule, providers of services or supplies to the Medicare program would be classified under one of three categories relating to possible fraud: limited risk, moderate risk, and high risk:

Limited-risk providers would have enrollment requirements, license, and database verifications.

Moderate-risk providers would have to meet those requirements -- plus unscheduled site visits.

High-risk providers would have to meet the initial requirements and would also undergo unscheduled site visits, criminal background checks, and fingerprinting.

In the proposed regulation, the CMS notes that "in general, we consider physicians, nonphysician practitioners, and medical clinics and group practices to pose limited risk because these professionals are State licensed and we are not aware of any recent studies or other evidence that indicates that these suppliers, as a category, pose an elevated risk to the Medicare program."

In addition to the new requirements for high-risk providers, other provisions of the proposed rule include:

Allowing Medicare to suspend payments to a provider as soon as a credible allegation of fraud exists

Allowing application fees to be imposed on Medicare providers and suppliers

Requiring Children's Health Insurance Programs and Medicaid programs to terminate providers that have defrauded the Medicare program

Medicare will be accepting comments on the proposed rule through Nov. 16.

Starting late this week, parents of children with pre-existing health conditions were expecting to breathe easier.

That's when a provision of the federal law overhauling health care takes effect and bans insurance companies from denying individual policies for kids with a history of health problems. But families counting on the change could be in for a shock.

The Denver Post reports, "at least six major companies — including Anthem, Aetna, Cigna, and Humana — have said they will stop writing new policies for individual children" in Colorado. The companies "blamed health reform mandates taking effect Thursday requiring companies that write such policies as of that date to also cover sick children up to age 19," the paper said.

The Washington Post reports that three big insurers — WellPoint, Cigna and CoventryOne — made their decisions because of "uncertainty in the health insurance market."

By dropping all new children-only coverage before the effective day of the new mandate, the companies effectively sidestep the new requirements.

The advocacy group Health Care for America Now was the first to bring the action to widespread attention. "Even for the insurance industry this behavior is surprisingly brazen," HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome wrote in a blog entry for the Huffington Post. "They don't like the rules, so they're going to take their ball and go home."

But the insurance industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans rejected HCAN's contention that the companies' refusal to sell to all comers is somehow a violation of a promise made earlier this year by AHIP CEO Karen Ignagni that insurance companies would comply with regulations regarding children and pre-existing conditions.

In an interview, AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said Ignagni was responding only to promises that children wouldn't be excluded from their parents' plans and that if the kids are covered, the policies would include treatment of their pre-existing condition.

What emerged in the regulations, however, Zirkelbach said, was, in effect, a requirement that insurance companies accept children even if they are already sick. That, he said, would be tantamount to exactly what companies want to avoid with the adult population — letting people wait until they are sick to sign up for insurance. Which is exactly why the insurance industry is so insistent on a coverage mandate: It needs premiums of healthy people to help cover the costs of those who are not.

Thus, he said, the companies in question "are having to make some difficult decisions" to stop offering coverage to all new children rather than take the chance that only the sick would enroll. At least until 2014, when everyone is supposed to be covered under the law.

Wednesday, 22 September 2010, Press Release: GE Free NZ

Urgent research is needed to identify if a new and virulent antibiotic resistant superbug that has been affecting people in many different countries is the result of Genetic Engineering. Scientists have been warning that transgenic organisms could mutate and cause new virulent pathogens, and there are concerns that this may have now occurred.

The new super bug called NDM-1 (New Dehli metallo-beta lactamase) genes have been detected on gram-negative enteric bacilli causing severe respiratory problems, pneumonia, fever, chills, blood and urinary tract infections that are thought to be more severe than swine flu [1].

The beta-lactamase genes (bla) or Ampicillin resistance genes are commonly used in genetic engineering. They are used as marker genes to inactivate antibiotics. Scion are using it in their GE trees, and biotechnology companies use them in GE plants.

The bla gene is often carried on plasmids in the bacterial nuclei, which could then be acquired by other pathogens [2]. Recombinant technology (genetic engineering) uses the exact same process by attaching vector systems to the genes of interest and placing them into plasmids to multiply [3].

“Could the sudden appearance of the super bug be a mutation of our own making and the result of gut bacteria taking up the genetic modifications that have been introduced into food?" said Claire Bleakley president of GE-Free NZ in food and environment.

“Research is urgently needed as so little is known about the results of mixing foreign DNA and using GE to cross the species barrier. Species integrity has been developed for a reason and the spread of super bugs from eating GE foods to gut bacteria must be closely examined.”

The FSANZ has approved 37 GE foods with some containing a bla gene. FSNAZ and just ticked through a new GE corn (Smartstax) that has six different insecticidal and herbicidal genes all sourced from common soil bacteria and antibiotic genes.

Something is rotten in the GE regulatory system and human safety is being ignored for lack of evidence and lack of motivation to conduct proper science. Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) must address the risk of the transgenic bla gene being implicated in a new pandemic and must not approve GE applications that use antibiotic resistant genes while their safety remains in doubt.

In 1993 I developed a protocol addressing flesh eating bacteria that was ignored by the WA state Dept of Health, while people were dying.

We published out challenge to mainstream medicine in 1994 and subsequently every year since then.

There is still no effective means to address this in the mainstream pipeline, but yet no one has come forward to engage our approach.

Drug-resistant superbugs found in 3 states

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical WriterMon Sep 13, 2010

BOSTON – An infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: Bacteria that have been made resistant to nearly all antibiotics by an alarming new gene have sickened people in three states and are popping up all over the world, health officials reported Monday.

The U.S. cases and two others in Canada all involve people who had recently received medical care in India, where the problem is widespread. A British medical journal revealed the risk last month in an article describing dozens of cases in Britain in people who had gone to India for medical procedures.

How many deaths the gene may have caused is unknown; there is no central tracking of such cases. So far, the gene has mostly been found in bacteria that cause gut or urinary infections.

Scientists have long feared this — a very adaptable gene that hitches onto many types of common germs and confers broad drug resistance, creating dangerous "superbugs."

"It's a great concern," because drug resistance has been rising and few new antibiotics are in development, said Dr. M. Lindsay Grayson, director of infectious diseases at the University of Melbourne in Australia. "It's just a matter of time" until the gene spreads more widely person-to-person, he said.

Grayson heads an American Society for Microbiology conference in Boston, which was buzzing with reports of the gene, called NDM-1 and named for New Delhi.

The U.S. cases occurred this year in people from California, Massachusetts and Illinois, said Brandi Limbago, a lab chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three types of bacteria were involved, and three different mechanisms let the gene become part of them.

"We want physicians to look for it," especially in patients who have traveled recently to India or Pakistan, she said.

What can people do?

Don't add to the drug resistance problem, experts say. Don't pressure your doctors for antibiotics if they say they aren't needed, use the ones you are given properly, and try to avoid infections by washing your hands.

The gene is carried by bacteria that can spread hand-to-mouth, which makes good hygiene very important.

It's also why health officials are so concerned about where the threat is coming from, said Dr. Patrice Nordmann, a microbiology professor at South-Paris Medical School. India is an overpopulated country that overuses antibiotics and has widespread diarrheal disease and many people without clean water.

"The ingredients are there" for widespread transmission, he said. "It's going to spread by plane all over the world."

The U.S. patients were not related. The California woman needed hospital care after being in a car accident in India. The Illinois man had pre-existing medical problems and a urinary catheter, and is thought to have contracted an infection with the gene while traveling in India. The case from Massachusetts involved a woman from India who had surgery and chemotherapy for cancer there and then traveled to the U.S.

Lab tests showed their germs were not killed by the types of drugs normally used to treat drug-resistant infections, including "the last-resort class of antibiotics that physicians go to," Limbago said.

She did not know how the three patients were treated, but all survived.

Doctors have tried treating some of these cases with combinations of antibiotics, hoping that will be more effective than individual ones are. Some have resorted to using polymyxins — antibiotics used in the 1950s and '60s that were unpopular because they can harm the kidneys.

The two Canadian cases were treated with a combination of antibiotics, said Dr. Johann Pitout of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. One case was in Alberta, the other in British Columbia.

Both patients had medical emergencies while traveling in India. They developed urinary infections that were discovered to have the resistance gene once they returned home to Canada, Pitout said.

The CDC advises any hospitals that find such cases to put the patient in medical isolation, check the patient's close contacts for possible infection, and look for more infections in the hospital.

Some longtime users were furious.
“My dishes were dirtier than before they were washed,” one wrote last week in the review section of the Web site for the Cascade line of dishwasher detergents. “It was horrible, and I won’t buy it again.”
“This is the worst product ever made for use as a dishwashing detergent!” another consumer wrote.
Like every other major detergent for automatic dishwashers, Procter & Gamble’s Cascade line recently underwent a makeover. Responding to laws that went into effect in 17 states in July, the nation’s detergent makers reformulated their products to reduce what had been the crucial ingredient, phosphates, to just a trace.
While phosphates help prevent dishes from spotting in the wash cycle, they have long ended up in lakes and reservoirs, stimulating algae growth that deprives other plants and fish of oxygen.
Yet now, with the content reduced, many consumers are finding the new formulas as appealing as low-flow showers, underscoring the tradeoffs that people often face today in a more environmentally conscious marketplace. From hybrid cars to solar panels, environmentally friendly alternatives can cost more. They can be less convenient, like toting cloth sacks or canteens rather than plastic bags or bottled water. And they can prove less effective, like some of the new cleaning products.
“Most Americans want to do things that are good for the environment, but not everyone wants to pay the price,” said Elke U. Weber, director of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University.
In the world of cleaning agents, where chemicals and fragrances can pose respiratory and allergy problems as well as pollute waterways, the environmental benefits of the switch are clear. Yet the new products can run up against longtime habits and even cultural concepts of cleanliness.
Phosphorus in the form of phosphates suspends particles so they do not stick to dishes and softens water to allow suds to form.
Now that the content in dishwasher detergent has plummeted to 0.5 percent from as high as 8.7 percent, many consumers are just noticing the change in the wash cycle as they run out of the old product.
“Low-phosphate dish detergents are a waste of my money,” said Thena Reynolds, a 55-year-old homemaker from Van Zandt County, Tex., who said she ran her dishwasher twice a day for a family of five. Now she has to do a quick wash of the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher to make sure they come out clean, she said. “If I’m using more water and detergent, is that saving anything?” Ms. Reynolds said. “There has to be a happy medium somewhere.”
Similarly, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., that helps women form environmentally minded cooperatives and trains house cleaners, says their employers have often resisted switching to the new cleaning products.
“There’s the myth that to be clean it has to shine or smell or make a lot of bubbles,” said Ivette Melendez, one of the trainers for the group, Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security. She says products like vinegar, baking soda or the newer cleansers work just as well as traditional items if applied in the proper mix and quantities.
But Jessica Fischburg, a commerce manager in Norwich, Conn., for CleaningProductsWorld.com, which sells janitorial supplies in bulk, said she was not surprised that many of her clients rejected products marketed as environmentally friendly.
“The reality of any green product is that they generally don’t work as well,” she said. “Our customers really don’t like them.”
But some users attest to quantifiable benefits. Reports of burns, rashes, dizziness and scratchy throats among housekeeping employees have plummeted at North Central Bronx Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center since the staff switched to new cleaning products in 2004, said Peter Lucey, an associate executive director for support services at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. The number of lost days linked to injuries from the products declined from 54 in 2004 to zero last year, he said. “It’s the switch and the training,” Mr. Lucey said.
In the case of the new dishwasher detergents, the main benefit is viewed as the protection of bodies of freshwater.
Once they go down the drain and into the environment through discharge at sewage treatment plants, phosphates end up in lakes, streams and drinking-water reservoirs.
Phosphorus pollution comes from multiple sources, including fertilizer and manure that enter the water through runoff. Dishwasher detergents contribute just a fraction, but environmental campaigners say any reduction can result in a tangible improvements. (Laundry detergents and hand soaps are already free of phosphates.)
The first significant regulatory rumblings came in Washington State in 2006. As more and more states followed suit, manufacturers faced the prospect of uneven laws that could disrupt retail distribution nationwide, said Dennis Griesing, vice president for government affairs at the American Cleaning Institute, which represents the cleaning product industry. The nationwide product rollover began late last year.
Industry officials generally insist that most customers have not noticed a change. But in its September issue, Consumer Reports reported
The magazine did note that the formulas were improving, and it rated seven detergents “very good,” including two of six Cascade products it tested. Susan Baba, a spokeswoman for Cascade, said that while most Cascade customers had not noticed any change, Procter & Gamble was modifying the formulas of some products in response to complaints.
“As we learn more, we’re finding out that there’s a lot more variation than we saw in the labs,” she said.
Ms. Baba added that the conversion to low-phosphate content had been complex, with three or four ingredients needed to match what the phosphates accomplished alone.
Elise Jones, a 32-year-old mother of two in Chatham, N.J., and a blog editor for Babybites, a group for new and expectant mothers, said she noticed “a white dusty film” on her dishes and children’s cups starting about a month ago. “I thought it was the dishwasher,” she said, before she heard of the change in formulas.
All the same, she agrees with the restrictions on phosphates because “we all worry about our water supply.”
Washing the dishes entirely by hand is not necessarily better for the environment, experts say, because people tend to let the tap run even when they are not rinsing. So Mrs. Jones now rinses them all by hand after the wash cycle, trying to economize on water so that her rinsing can match the dishwasher’s efficiency.
“You try to do things as consciously as you can,” she said.

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